Transcripts For CSPAN2 The 20240703

Several professional organizations such as the International Astronomical union. The author of several books, a Popular Science writer and public speaker and, frequent University Professor and lecturer originally from detroit. Brother guy is an alumnus of, mit and the university of arizona who interrupted his studies serve two years in the peace corps. Volunteer teaching physics and astronomy in kenya. So he too has a beer spirit of adventure and exploration. Brother guy is the worthy recipient, numerous honors, not least of which was being named by pope francis eight years ago to be director of the vatican, headquartered at castelli gandolfo in italy and president. The Vatican Observatory Foundation based in phenix, arizona. His honors include the carl sagan medal for Outstanding Communications by a planetary scientist to the general. Well see about that today. And hes been nominated for a very rare honor to have an asteroid named after him. Brother guy, welcome. The historic Central Library of los angeles. And thank you for joining in honoring the namesake of the North Hollywood Regional Library by delivering the first Amelia Earhart lecture in adventure and the stage is yours. It means in 20. So there was some creative storytelling, right. There is a that this is up here we go. Well go and should ring up if were lucky this should ring up if were lucky. There we are. Thank heavens im brother guy consolmagno. As you heard, the director of the vatican observatory thats me. Im in the picture in Skellig Michael, which is 1002 year old monastery off the coast of, kerry in ireland, which where they have a dark sky sight. My research is meteorites, you know, the rocks that fall out of the sky in the asteroids that they come from. I came to Skellig Michael to celebrate the brothers, the religious brothers, like who dedicated their lives, the worship of god in the fact that its a spectacular place to visit made it all the more attractive. And the fact that it was where. They filmed the most recent star wars movies also had a little bit to do with why i like being there. I am, as you heard an author, ive got a coming out the end of september called when science goes wrong and the subtitle is the the desire and the search for truth, which raises an interesting question how do you write a book about science, not a book of science, but a book about science . How do you write a book about truth . Both of those are kind of hard to get your hands around, hard to. But its not the first time that i was faced with this issue back in 1987. And old buddy of mine from the university of arizona, we classmates together in planetary science, the other guy with the wild hair, cliff stoll, had found hackers breaking into computers when he was working the Lawrence Berkeley labs. It turns out they were spies for the soviet union who thought they were in the Lawrence Livermore lab computers. Very different kinds of places. One of them explores subatomic particles. The other explores how to build bombs and he somebody oh, youre about to write this up. He wrote up a serious and how you find hackers in a computer and he sent it off to an agent the agent said cliff this is the boring thing i can imagine. Go away. And then it made the front page of the new york in the agent called afternoon and said cliff ive got 20 different publishers looking for were going to auction off the rights can you write a and cliff goes im not a better writer today than i was yesterday you can go ahead. You write the book. Ill sell it. He had no idea how to write a book which i was bizarre because cliff is one of the most fantastic id ever come across in my life. And i said, cliff, dont give the details tell stories now. I didnt get that because i was so, but because i had seen that done in this book sort of the new machine by a guy named, tracy kidder, who wrote a bestseller book about a computer and not even a very good computer a data general nova three computer. And i used to use those. We werent going to go into the problems had because what he realized is you dont tell stories you dont do you dont write truth. You tell stories about and the way you tell stories about is by telling stories about people. So cliff up writing his book about the people he encountered including a wonderful fictional a character he totally made up in his book called cliff stole. And he would to the cliff character and what cliff character is going to do next because that was the way he could tell stories about himself and my own book and when science goes wrong facing the same starts with a story. That was the story i told when the first part of this was published in the journal and magazine called the tablet. The story of a whose son in law died of covid and whose last to his teenage daughters was im sorry i didnt get the vaccine then can explore why good sensible people were of the vaccine why people be overselling the science or underselling the science from that story. You can see human importance of understanding what science is and isnt what it can and cannot do. This whole idea of storytelling to me come from it naturally. My father taught the art of storytelling, that he learned his uncles who were all in vaudeville in the 1920s and thirties, but at some part i had forgotten that. So let me tell you a little bit of my story of how i got into this. I love Science Fiction. Im a nerd. So it comes naturally before. I was a scientist before i was a jesuit i was a wannabe science writer. I wanted to be a story. In 1970, i a College Freshman at Boston College liberal arts major, my creative writing instructor said, you know, if you want to read, write stories, you should read wellwritten stories. And he suggested the narnia books. Now, i was just old enough that i had never heard of the narnia books in fact when i was a kid, i was even a bigger nerd mostly back in those days. I didnt even like fantasy books, wanted books with facts kind of like the eustace character in narnia that boy did. I relate to him. So its not surprising that id never heard of the number of good books, but my best friend from high school had also gone off to boston with me, but he was studying physics at mit and he was a member of. The m. I. T. Science fiction. So every weekend go out and hang out with him. And i discovered the misfits library and there were i found copies of the narnia. Im 18 years old. I discovered for the first time im concentrating on the authors technique more than the content. But i discovered that this had a remarkable effect. Me it wasnt the fact that they were christian. You know, obviously were christian. You can tell that if youre 18 years old, it might be snuck when youre 12 or eight. But i was still a practicing back in those days. So, you know being christian didnt bother me. I wasnt surprised to find myself up in the adventures because thats what they were written for to make them adventure. But confluence of those two things made me realize for the first time that, you know, being a christian, a great adventure, it was as exciting as any fantasy story and that sense it finally got me to realize that fantasy is based on truth truth. Fantasies only work if theyre true, not in the details, but if theyre true to the human spirit, if theyre true to the issues that we actually have to face, if they can get us to face those issues in a different way, to see them a point of view we hadnt seen before. Another thing happened when i was reading the narnia in the midst of the library, i discovered that its a library and i said, this is the Worlds Largest collection of Science Fiction books, and this is a whole lot more fun being a history major at Boston College. So i started plotting how i was going to transfer to mit. I wound up colleges, i wound up changing. Im changing my vocation mostly so i could read Science Fiction books. Ultimately, instead of reading and writing stories set on planets, i wound reading and writing about planets themselves. Now, i also did learn something about storytelling, just like the instructor has suggested. I read a lot of science books, Fiction Books since then with kind of a analytical mind. And i wound up trying to systemize, what is it that i look for when i want to read a story three things, show me something i havent seen before. Keep the novel in novel. Secondly, make me turn pages. There are many science books and fantasies which i have started and thought to myself, wow, this is fab illustrated, this is fabulous. Is world building. Wow, what an intricate while. Some of these days want to get back and finish this book. And the third is be honest. As i say fantasy has to be honest even if it is a fantastic world the truth that it tells have to be real truth. The curious thing is, on reflection also what im looking for when i read a science paper, i want to see something i havent seen before. I want to see Something Interesting enough that i go through the equations and it had better be the truth. Thats what its all about. But then thats what im looking for when im doing the jesuit bit of trying to be closer to god. First, show me something new novelty is essential. Without it, there was no novel. One of the worst crimes in science is also the published work thats already been done. Finding something and new hidden among the mundane is also the pattern of how we experience god in the real world. Next, make me turn the pages like the narnia books. Theres got to be an underlying sense of the joy, even if theres a sense of tragedy. Some get something me to make me turn the pages that joy is a sign of gods presence. And it also is what makes scientific work interesting enough to make you to want to do it every day incidentally, i have talk about why i chose that cover of stories. The cover story is called the skylark of space and it was the first Science Fiction story that i know that was set on a planet around another star in the same issue is an adventure of. A fellow who is trapped after world war one in a cave for 500 years and came back. And his name was anthony rogers. But they turned to buck rogers when they made it into a movie. Yeah, id realize that make you look at the universe the universe we know but in a new and exciting way you. Yes oh thank you. Even if youre an atheist, if youre a storyteller or if youre a scientist, your goal is the truth. But if you are a believer, having that goal is really even more important because truth better be evidence of gods a true story and honest story has believable characters going through actions that may be surprising, but ultimately they feel right. You know, when you go, i never saw coming, but yeah, thats what would happen. Whether its frodo and gollum when they get to mount doom or any other mystery story where youre bamboozled until you get to the oh of course i should have seen it all along. And of whats a bad story is when they shove characters to do what the author wants them do. And you going, yeah, i dont think so real life isnt like that. It doesnt have to be about people that. You would agree with really is full of people who you love doing things that you wish they hadnt done. If we didnt love them, we wouldnt care. But but it reminds me that, you know when youre young, you hear the church the time saying, dont do that. But when youre older, you realize your church or your parents have been saying, oh, dont do that. Weve been there there. A story that shoves its characters around to fit some preconceived outcome isnt honest. A story that shows you reasonable, understandable even if they turn out to be regrettable decisions is ones that allows you to then think about the implication of the decisions were making in our own lives and. If you find a character you love doing something you wish they had and maybe thatll help you be a little more generous to. Your friends who do things when you really wish they hadnt. Its in storytelling. We get most quickly to that truth. Our philosophy, our ethics, ultimately our religion doesnt exist just in books of philosophy. It lives in a lived context that means story. That means the philosopher Christina Baber lake in a book called prophets the posthuman says stories, point us to the kinds of cells we can be, and they help determine the ethical appropriateness of our actions. For example, consider your heart issue, the ethical implications of biotechnology in mails for gossip in Science Fiction stories by lois mcmaster, brugel we show are shown a number of diverse effects, good and bad that arise from one case uterine replicators. If youre pregnant, you just pop it out, put it in a box, come back. Nine months later, youve got a baby and you havent had to worry about all the, you know, inconveniences of that thing. What are the implications for Something Like that . What the startling implications of genetic enhancements of human embryos . Well, the philosopher christopher causer defense of dignity, discusses kind of topic. He has great hes got great clarity of. And its important to have these scholarly perspectives. But his book doesnt have them come alive they way they do in the bogosian books. Her books are Science Fiction novels. They give a context to those ideas. Theyre centered around people. I can believe really what act the way they do whether i agree with them or not, given the circumstances they are and theyre fun to read. Now, the thing to remember is that these are space operas. Theyre not philosopher b, they make no pretense to how so . Being high literature by design, theyre page. They follow the adventures of highly unusual heroes doing, you know, crazy things, highly unusual sidekicks. Theyve got these garish covers. The plots are full of derring do in bushel piles, disaster in dignity, honor, hero, in a way the reader can endure only because know that somehow its all going to turn out right by the last page, which it always does. And the charm of the stories is actually how the author is going lure you into believing one absurdity after another. And yet, in the process, she sneaks in some pretty profound moral issues seeing and in the context of a story, lets test the idea you can relate it to the issues of the story and then you can relate that to things in our own daily lives at, the same time observing deep issues at the remove of a story you know set a long time in a galaxy far far away can help drop the defensiveness and the prejudices that might be blind us from seeing these things clearly in our own lives. Its no accident that the gospels of the heart of christians scripture are stories, not theological discourses. We can hear a story evaluator against our own human experience, question it and instinct draw lessons from it. I mean, when you go to church and you hear st pauls epistles and theres just so many words fly over your head, you dont remember it at the after the reader has stopped reading it. The gospel stories you remember cause their stories. Sometimes the questions that come up arent necessarily the questions that the gospel writer thought about. I remember somebody hearing, the story of the prodigal son and going, okay, so he goes back to. His father, whos taking care of the pigs, never mind. Theres a mother function of making a point, a story that derives from the fact that scripture was written, a time when most people couldnt read. And so the only heard scripture read to them out loud and you might only hear a story once every three years. Much of ancient literature was created to address a problem that, for the most part, we dont have anymore, which is to communicate ideas in that are in the written word to people who cant read. Nowadays, almost everybody can. Since the invention of the printing press, youre never too far from a book or a library full of books. But in ancient times, people who could read were rare books themselves. Rare people could only from what they heard. You usually what was read to them in a church or a synagogue by the one guy in the village who knew how to read. But in fact that same challenge occurs, when we present our science to work, whether its at or popular settings. How did you do that . How did you get people to remember you have books written with hooks that make the message memorable, something youre not going to affect forget, even if you only hear it once a year or once every three years. The Important Information and the truth that scripture or a scientific paper is going to convey you about who we are, how we should live is communicated in stories. But even then, the that we hear from scripture, the stories had been written down and the process writing changes things. There was a jesuit scholar, walter, who wrote a book on reality and literacy, and he described how structure is a product of the shift from oral traditions to written word, a shift that arguably was necessary for the rise science, he says. Writing restructures the very reflex deafness of writing enforced by the slowness of the writing process as compared to oral delivery as well by the isolation of the author compared to an oral performer, encourages growth of consciousness of the unconscious, is to say, writing it down makes you think about it. Thats one of the reasons why even we presented our scientific ideas at a meeting. You still have to do work of writing it on paper. If nothing else, it confront makes you confront and express all of the assumptions that you made when you were telling the story, when you were doing the science. More than that, since aristotle, weve had an idea of how stories work. And i would say that ideas also can tell us something about how our science works, how our faith works. This this idea goes back to but it can be found in the classic great pyramid. And i found this wonderful picture on internet, which i think expresses it pretty. Well, it was devised by the 19th german 19th century german playwright gustav freitag and. It says there are five elements again goes to aristotle. Theres exposition, rising action, climax falling action. And while so the story with an exposition of where are we, who are the protagonists who are the that we can care about what the place we can relate to the or the poor orphan with a funny scar living under the stairs or the peaceful countryside with a lovable, lovable hammetts story, luries in with a problem, a conflict, a mystery it makes you want to know what happens next. What happens when the visit wizard visits the orphan, when the wizard visits the habits and drags them away from home, then the story has a Central Point when the main character has make a crucial decision, when uncovers the key piece of information and everything that you thought you knew changed, and that decision that information. The main moment has consequences. It matters. You know how it matters within the realm of the story, because weve given the set up about the first place in the first place back when the book began. So we know about the evil wizard whos trying to set the world or has the evil ring or whatever whatever. But it also matters outside of the context of the story to us, because we can see the connection in to our lives, in our fight, and worry good and evil. We have to see how the decision out. And thats what keeps us turning the. And then we come to the end the resolution of the dilemma sometimes story forget to do this you may have seen movie the martian. You may have heard the book. One of the differences is the movie ends it in a dilemma that the book forgot to have because the author was first time author for a story to satisfy you need to have a moment at end when you can step back, catch your taken the scenery, look over the landscape. Now were never middle earth well never be the same where theres now a new generation going off to hogwarts the same thing happens in a scientific paper, any kind of academic paper you need the same parts you have to describe the problem you have to describe. Its a problem you have to describe why you needed that clever or or special thing that you did you have to describe what your brilliant country view should was and how it changes what you had seen before. And then, most importantly, you have to be able to sit back, catch your breath, show how understanding of this problem is different it had seen before, and why ought to get funded again for the next years problem problem. All right. So there was a parallel. So so what . Thats cute. What does it tell us . Heres a bold assertion. Heres something im going to say about storytelling and science if its bad storytelling, probably bad science. If you dont have all the elements place, youre missing something essential in your argument. Essential because without it, it might not be true. Think of the scientific paper. If you dont have a good, that means you havent read literature. You dont know what the rest of the scientific world has been doing all along. You established a Common Ground that you can speak to the other scientists over if you dont have rising action you havent articulated why it was a problem. Why you bother doing this work . Playing in the lab isnt the same as doing science. If you dont know and articulate why you were doing this, then you have no way of judging if what youve done was worthwhile, or even if it got you anywhere without the classic breakthrough. The crucial insight there, no point to your paper. The falling is where you show the rest of us your insight why it made a difference how it makes a difference because science is more than the data science is what you have learned from the data. Its not just data, its understanding only. Then can you arrive at new knowledge. If you dont have all of those elements, including the last, where you can sit back and say, you know why it works, then you dont have a complete story. If you dont have a complete story, its not good science. We can learn something else. Storytelling, which is a lot. The elements that go into good storytelling are essential for good science. I have a friend, teresa nielsen, hayden shes an editor at tori books and Science Fiction. She also teaches something called invisible, viable paradise is that invisible . Viable, paradise which is a workshop for Science Fiction. And she used to run a blog called making light, which i swiped this from. And at one point she talked about four item formula for writing fiction move and make it keep moving, which is to say, tell the story you want to tell. Dont elly around, make it consequential have later events in the story be caused by what happened in the earlier events recycle your characters give preference to characters youve already created, give preference to things youve already used. And finally, if you already have one, which is to say whenever need something new, whenever you need something to to make the story continue like a prop or plot thread, go back to what youve already written and see if its actually sitting at you in plain sight. Do you guys remember the movie. Oh, i cant remember the title of it. The the yellow volkswagen bus with the little girl whos going to be one of miss sunshine. Thank you. I happened to be in australia trying to do some observe thing and we were stuck with 12 days of rain. So i saw that movie many times waiting for the rain to clear, including the directors cuts. And they were describing how there was a scene where they were pulled over by the police and the cop opens the trunk and there is the dead body. I hope im not spoiling the book. And as writers, they had idea how to get themselves out of that and suddenly they realize. Is that a throwaway joke they had introduced earlier in the film gave them way out of it. See, if you already have one. Okay. Look, look. Lets see how this works in move and keep moving. You cant move and keep moving unless theres a place youre moving to and you need know what youre trying to get to when youre moving. You dont write a good story without. Having some reason for writing it a plot idea, a character sometimes is just a setting that want to be in. Sometimes can be nothing more than a picture. This is, of course what c. S. Lewis wrote about how wrote the narnia books he started with this picture, whatever it is, the opening of the story has to serve reason you have for writing the story next tell the story without shilly shallying about you know something really cool happens chapter three. But your writer doesnt know that unless you give reason to think that there will be something cool happening with the promise of more to come. You got to get them to turn the pages once told them that something cool is coming, youd better deliver something cool but thats thats a different issue make it consequential have later events because theyre motivated or shaped by earlier ones casual causal or consequential link is like theresa says i feel Cable Holding the narrative together or the String Holding a rosary together. Actually theresa is also a beta and made this rosary actually shes a catholic as it happens, as recycling characters, you know, when your people in later events preference to the characters, youve already got, see if youve already got one. So if you need new we talked about that. That was about writing a story. How does that fit in science . Whats the scientific equivalent move and keep moving . No. What it is youre trying to do have a clearer idea of the bit of information you want to get across, concentrate on getting to. Ill tell you a truth about science. Not even in the text here. Youre probably taught the method. Maybe in grade school a scientist sees a problem, devises hypotheses, invents experiment. Science isnt actually done that way you get a new hammer, you pound on everything until it breaks you see all the pieces. You know that youve got a meeting in two months. You have to write an abstract for it and then you try to figure out what have i learned from breaking all these things with this new hammer that that being the case, you still have to turn that experience into a coherent story that follows these points a lot of the creativity of science is realizing. Wait a minute i just solved the problem that may not even have realized was a. So youve got, you know, randall monroe, the author of the x making fun of a particular kind of science thats infamous string theory, which is a really cool idea. They havent quite figured out what its supposed to do yet. The laboratory version of that is, to make a measurement thats easy to do, but doesnt actually tell you what you want to know make bill cool, doesnt you anywhere. Thats silly. Shallying let me give you an example. If you want to know how a meteorite breaks up when it hits the earths atmosphere, you have to know how strong the meteorite is. So which is to say you want to know where that point is. Now to put a meteorite in a lab, break it up makes me really with meteorite curators because they would like to have that piece back when. I was done so very few people make that measurement instead. What they wind up making a measurement of is the youngs modulus, which you can do without breaking the meteorite which is great. Then you can publish numbers. The only trouble is it doesnt actually you what you wanted to know until youre clever enough realize. Well, maybe there is problem that thats a solution to. Making a consequential make each point fit with the next next. Years ago i was a grad student before voyager went to uranus and neptune. I heard a talk by one of the grand old men in the field whos actually wealthy. Hes used grander and older, but he had done several careful experiments try to come up with the rotation period of neptune, and he talked for half an hour about all the different ways that people had measured the rotation period of neptune. And finally, this hotshot scientist in the back of the room, not me, gets up and says, yes, doctor, ive got a question. So what . Who cares what . The rotation period of neptune is, it turns. There are reasons why you might want a but he had forgotten to tell us those. And without that youre sitting in the audience going like, why am i suffering through this . You know, this is the this is the solution. And you, the criminal, you forgot to me what he had done, that he made him a criminal. Its like a mystery novel where. You never found out who got murdered. Sometimes consequence gets misunderstood. Theres this wonderful young adult fantasy series which has the unfortunate. You know, she was a young writer when she wrote it that our heroes saved entire universe in book one. Whats left for them to do for the rest of the 20 books that she wound up writing . You know . One of the Amazing Things about j. K. Rowling is she got that right and she was able to come up with a series that had a limited beginning and end and had the stakes rise higher and higher for each book. So that you did keep turning the pages to find out not an insignificant bit of story telling in a story i care more about the fate of an interesting character than i care about the fate of the universe. You know, the universe has gotten gotten along just fine without me worrying about it, but my friend. I want to know whats going to happen to them, frankly, i also trust a whole lot more, some authors idea about a person than some authors idea about the universe universe. I would rather a scientific paper that takes a small but interesting puzzle and works it out completely rather than one that finds, you know, pieces of data and one green in the meteorite and out of that tries to draw tremendous conclusions about how the solar system was formed. Doesnt work that way. Thats another example of bad science, is bad storytelling. And also one of the hardest things about being a scientist is to find a problem thats big enough to be interesting but small that i can actually solve it. You know, in the three years that ive got a grant. But this sense consequential raises the deeper question why are we doing why do we do science . Do we write stories . Why do read stories all that to the side . What are the consequences of that. Meanwhile, step three, step four recycle your characters. See if you already have one. Keep it simple. You dont want. To introduce new hypotheses when you can actually use one thats at hand. We call occams razor in Bertrand Russells formulation whenever possible substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences rather than unknown entities you dont want to date ex machina, you dont want to. God is going to come out of the machinery at the end of the story and fix everything because thats bad storytelling. If bad storytelling is it also bad religion . Does that apply to our lives of faith . Move and keep it moving. Shilly shallying. Okay if youre interested in god, if you think god might be talking to, dont wait until next sunday. This sunday, dont wait until youre in a quiet place. Dont wait for the end of. This talk. Be aware of gods talking to you right now. Maybe, and it certainly isnt my voice. You can tell the difference. For me at least the decision try to get in touch with god. However, you could do it isnt the end of the story. Its not even the climax. Its the opening page. Its the exposition. A lot of people somehow think that science is all about facts and faith is all about woo woo kind of stuff. But every religious experience starts an experience and then religion is based on what do we do about that experi . Its there will be conflict. There wouldnt be a story without there will be confirm that in trial. You try to understand god. There will be a tough that comes along. You dont want to sleep through the climax of your story. Youre paying attention and watch out for the of that choice. Cant skip ahead to the last chapter to find what its going to be. You know the consequences in my case was taking vows back when my my beard was still red. Gray. And then you discover that your story is just one part. The first volume of a good, long, a shared universe. If you will that the wild cards is a classic example, a shared universe. Lots of different authors who have decided to tell stories in same universe. Make it consequential. Then a miracle occurs is lousy. Religion as much as it is lousy. Science and lousy storytelling. Thats not its not that there arent miracles, but that thats not how miracles happen. They dont happen out of the for no good reason, unexpected things happen in your life but with a real miracle. There actually is an internal logic to whats going on whats going on between you and god. Sometimes you have to accept that is a logic. Even if i cant see it right. Because you also have to expect that not everything that seems actually is an act of god. Maybe its coincidence. Maybe its just a random junk. Possibly the most original breakthrough in Saint Ignatius is spiritual exercises, is the guy who founded the jesuit order that im part, is what he calls the discernment of rather than, you know, trying reproduce everything he does. I just want to point out that what he did was to come up with a way getting a judgment on things that have happened to you and go, is this really a call from god or is this random junk . Is this something i should be listening . Or is this just that i had a bad pizza night . Its not always obvious, but there are ways that you can test these things because. These things from god have an internal logic just as science has an internal logic. If theres no internal logic, its bad storytelling. If its bad storytelling, its bad. Number three research. All your characters. Most of us are not called to be missionary is to some far off land. The path god is through your neighbors. The people you already know, your opportunity be a saint is going to happen right in the corridors of wherever you are. That incidentally, the Amelia Earhart library. See if you already have one. God doesnt suddenly appear, out of nowhere hes been on all along with a little practice, you begin to recognize how your stardom if by his weird sense of humor you know nothing else who but god with a sense of humor would give us a planet nebula that also has a funny face with the clowns nose and recognize and use the richness that already exists in your own tradition. What if every decent religion tradition has got whole set of techniques for learning to recognize god, use them. Dont waste your time. Reinvent the wheel. Thats good. And if its good storytelling chances, its good religion. The greatest that any of us gets to make is the story of our own lives. We start with the setting that weve been given the situation into. We were born the talents and the limitations that we were born with. And then youve got a chance to form shape that into something new, something done before our. Lives are our own Science Fiction novels. Why do i call them scientific fun . They take place in the future future. Now theres only so much we can do to write them ourselves. Sometimes characters just wont behave the way want them to, but it wouldnt real if they only jumped. When you pulled their strings. Good storytelling because at the of the day youve got to remember something true in storytelling, religion and science is that there is a fundamental difference between story and, reality and you always have to keep sight of this. Never lose sight of it. Reality is. What happened . Storytelling is how we tell it, how we sense of it. One of my favorite fantasy books, a few years ago with joe waltons among, others that won a whole bunch of awards including best Science Fiction novel of the year, the nebula, the hugo. If there is a flaw in the book, its that there are just a few too many outlandish about the main character. Youre crazy family. Her tragic background. That awful boarding school she goes to. Except turns out. I know joe walton. Thats her in the picture, along with another friend of ours, had a palmer and a friend of ours, voltaire. We were all together at the museum in paris paris. A lot of that book is ordered biographical. The parts of her book that are the hardest to swallow are actually the parts that are based on her own life. Which is often a problem because when youre trying to a story you have to reality is always richer than what you can tell in the story, which is part of the art of storytelling part the art of science to filter out all those other interesting things to talk about. The one interesting thing that i want to talk about now and actually an important part of a religion to be able to say of all the millions things going on at this moment, at this time, let me think about this particular. So if you want to get a sense of what im doing maybe you can try writing stories yourself, learning by teaching teaches you how stories are learning by doing that teaches you how stories work. Fanfiction is really popular for this. Its been fascinating. During covid, i wasnt spending a lot of time reading fanfiction and if nothing else it shows you what the writers most of them are young, what they yearn for the most, what theyre most afraid of, what theyre most hopeful for. A lot of them want to want to be fabulously rich. A lot of them want to have a magical way of knowing who theyre spending the rest of their life with and not make a mistake that way. This site is called archive of our own. It actually won the hugo prize one year. Its not just fiction with training wheels. Its a slice of folk culture. Its our modern equivalent folk music. Its taking established themes, settings adapting them to the circumstances. The author. I think this is what, you know, scholars will be studying years from now. And when you write, you can not only get the experience to judge how works. You can also learn more and more to start when the author is not being honest with you honest not the same thing is getting all the facts right. There is a difference between a book full of facts and a book that tells truth. Thats what poor eustis did understand in the narnia books or me when i was only reading books of facts. They say that chestertons biography of aquinas or francis of assisi do a great job conveying who those saints were, even though theyre full of the kind of mistakes that happen when youre writing them off the top of your head and you dont have the internet or a library to rely on your lived maybe cant let you judge accuracy of the facts in a story, but it can tell whether what the writer is writing has the ring of truth. Of the differences between story in real life. What you learn when you try to start writing it is that writing a good following these rules being careful not to introduce new characters of gods popping of the machinery. Its artifice. Its not real, real life messier on that. That blog site that i talked about making light. One of the commentaries from showrunner says, one of our about one of our favorite Science Fiction writers. One of the most important in a young science fans journey to maturity is realizing that robert ability to sound as if he knew what he was about was a whole lot greater than ability to actually know what he was talking about. And thats true in science, reality is not the controlled environment we create in our labs. Its more like one of those, you know, afterschool that are based on events. And yet there is value in taking the data out of a library out of a laboratory. Weve controlled it by taking a story and isolating the elements that we want to study. One of the reasons i trust the gospels that they tell me things that actually happened is that the way to and too inconsistent compared to a wellpolished bit of fiction. You know, i think the theologians totally in was trying to say that when he said you know to certain because its impossible for what hes trying to say is that no one would have made up what happens in the gospel. No one would have made up what happened to jesus. What to the apostles. Not if they were trying to make a believable story as saw in the john walton example. The truth can sometimes, you know, the reality can sometimes be so complicated that its hard to film. And, you know, ive got this whole literature of fantasy and Science Fiction stories to tell how our storytellers do make things up, universes in fantasy books are generally a whole lot more selfconsistent than and the philosophy thing these Science Fiction books are usually a lot less profound than. Now, doesnt that just contradict . I was saying about bad storytelling being, bad religion, it depends. It depends on your instinct of what i mean by bad. The gospels endured as marvelous stories for 2000 years, longer. I suspect most of those fantasy novels will endure. So obviously the gospels are doing something right. I would i would maybe there are examples of good storytelling that these impossible things are the kind of novelty makes you say, wow, i see that coming. But of course, thats exactly right. So how can i judge of chesterton or the gospels or anything else really it. Right. Its a gut feeling. Sometimes you can justify it after the facts with a logical argument, but as with most logic, the gut instinct, the instinct comes first. Every student of physics has heard that phrase. This is obviously, intuitively to the casual observer we fire depend on, intuition and faith just as believers depend on experience and facts. Most descriptions of science dont give enough credit to those feelings. We are not divided into quirks and sparks, but for that neither were kirk nor spock. If follow the way the stories are told, one was actually very clever and the other actually was a mass of emotions. Even if you tried to suppress it. That is what made them good stories. Spending time with stories helps you exercise and develop your intuition, your sense of. Yeah, thats right. No, thats the trick. And ive seen that trick before and im not going to be fooled by it this time. In addition, it is in our emotions that find not only how we do it, where we get the instincts to know what, you know, experiment is the right experiment to do next. But also that question, i promise a few back. Why do we this stuff . Why do we do science . Why do i get passionate about Science Fiction books . Even ones that i can see arent great literature. But boy, after i finished one in the series, i have to pick the next one. Why . I keep showing up in the lab day after day, trying to get one more data point. Why do i stay outside at night, night after night, looking through a telescope . Why do i put up with tedious literature and mediocre requires, you know, what am i really looking for for . Chris green has been traveling with me and i went to mass on a Parish Church id never been to before. And he says, what do you expect . And i said, well, what i usually get, you know, i expect the music will be bad. The eucharist will good and the homily will be some place between. In my work as, a planetary scientist at the vatican. I have to put up a large, clumsy top, badly run over central bureaucracy that can be utterly insensitive to whats actually happening far away from headquarters. Why do i put up with it . Im talking about now. So you realize. But i dont know what you thought. I was talking. I mean, you can moan about nassau forever, which a lot of planetary scientists do, but at end of the day, only were able to get us to the moon. But then why did we want to get to the moon . Theres this philosophy of school of thought that says human beings do things for pleasure, but its got to be more subtle than that. I we do things for the hope or the expectation that well get some of joy out of it. You do have. To do the work of opening the book and reading opening pages before you can enjoy what the book is and those expectations will never be met. None of them last forever. Thats why we keep reading books. But sometimes those expectations oceans let us seahorses when theres actually nothing more than chance. Coincidence of clouds. Sometimes it brings us to create a beauty that feels familiar. When there is nothing familiar about. The image cynic often it right. 1700 years ago when he wrote you have made us for yourself, the lord in our hearts are restless until they rest in you all of our desires are ultimate a desire for what would identify as god. So it would call runner, by the way. But thats another story. We create stories in order to imitate a creator is the author of everything we read each other creations to imitate the god who probably watching what were doing with our lives and going, oh, thats cool. No, no, dont do that. I get burned. Look, ill never read that book. We study gods creation with science because we get an exquisite joy in just being close up, feeling breath of the creator who made the universe following with delight the, clever story that has woven into how it was created. And i think thats the final point. I want to make this unity between story and science and religion. Theyre all enjoyed by the same being, who ultimately lee is longing to rest some way in the arms of the creator. Thats why this world matters. Like a good book that is truth to be found here. But like a book at the end of the day, its only a thin tissue of words pointing to something, hinting at something that cant be captured, but only suggested a book profound as it might be, is not the reality itself. Scientific paper true as may be, is not the same thing as the universe its trying to describe. Our religion can lead us to our god if its doing its job right. But religion isnt the same thing as god. You shouldnt be worshiped in your religion. But meanwhile, what we do have at hand is the product of our own creativity, the product, our own god given talent. So you see that thats not the earth. Its a photograph of the earth made and processed by human beings. Im not the first guy to come up with that. It contains and expresses knowledge. Thats why we call it science. But its also something invented for ourselves, which is why he can call it fiction. Looking for stories in case, you know, the narnia books that i got in a writing class, it changed my life. It inspired me to go to mit, get an education in science, get a career in science, showed me that being a scientist could be a great adventure. It showed me the romance of being a christian, good and evil portrayed in an honest fantasy that reflects the good and evil that we in our own life choosing good fighting evil is exactly the struggle that makes our characters into heroes. And meanwhile seeing worlds that might be teaches us to be more of the worlds that are Science Fiction led me to science. Fantasy led me to truth. And from their religion in. Both ive discovered things that i kind of already knew but would never have seen without. And all three, im reminded of how wonderful it is to. Keep turning the pages. Thank you very much. So we have time for questions. If you want questions or comments, theres microphones because. This is being recorded. We wont know what you say until youre standing in front of the microphone. So if you have anything a question you want to ask, feel to find a microphone. If not, ill speak on my own for the next 20 minutes. And by you to choose. So youve got a question coming to the microphone. Thank very much. So this is somehow ventures and i know if its related exactly to what you were talking about, except that at the end, i get a glimpse of it and im subscribed to your email. And so i get a gist of everything. This combo of faith and science is done now and late. You know, i was always enamored by astronomy, but only it was later that i understood or i learned about this major component of the universe. As we understand it now, being named with the, you know, yeah, whatever name we can come with, which is the dark matter and the dark energy as a very large component. And all of a sudden now comes back to the faith and my brain because i always said, how can we say father who art in heaven . And then, you know, how can you contained in that creation or what not . And now all of a sudden were being subject or were being exposed to something that is otherwise not understood by us very well and by science were seeking explanation. You know, its a tremendous force and i did want to take the opportunity thats why i rushed and even came late. But to ask you about that connection and whether its true, we learn about these dark matter in the sense that they of the outer arms of the galaxies going faster than otherwise be under newtonian physics or its a great example of we believe in things we see because we see the effects they have on the things we can see and we call them dark energy and dark because were in the dark about them. You know, 30 years ago, we werent even sure that they existed at. Also shows us what science is really all about too often people have this idea that science is the way we learned it in school, getting the answers right in the back of the book and thats all sciences then boy that would be boring. But those are just finger exercises thats not playing music. Likewise, we think that religion is following a bunch of rules or quoting a bunch of verses. Its the same, you know, its its the finger exercises. But both of them are adventures of a human being and ultimately an adventure of love. And the person you is not somebody you say got them figured out. I got their number. You know, i dont need to spend any more time with them. Thats not somebody you love a god you love is one you admit you dont understand. A universe you love is a universe that you admit. You totally have all the facts the more you learn, the more you discover there is to be learned. And thats where the fun comes in and thats why there is a story to be told even if youve read every Agatha Christie novel and you know, shes got five plots and five characters, which comes out to 25 possible stories, it doesnt matter because you dont know which one youre going to get in. You dont know how shes going to do it this time. I mean, the genius behind the colombo story, you knew who did it from the beginning of the show. And the question was, how were they going to find out . How is he going . How can i spend time with these people who i love, spend time with ultimately science, spending time with the universe because i love it. I work on meteorites because i have a tremendous curiosity of how these meteorites are put together. Thats why its cool. Cool question. But i work with them because theyre pieces of outer space that i get to hold in my hands. What could be more thrilling than that and its a way of spending with them. When i was a kid, i remember i ten years old and was a rainy sunday afternoon. The couldnt go to the beach, couldnt go anywhere and my mom pulls out a deck of cards and were playing rummy and i had one of those momentary insights that every ten year old kid might have for a second. Shes a grown up. Im ten years old. She could beat anytime she wants to. Why is she playing cards . Me. Shes doing that because she loves me. And its her way of saying, i want to spend time with you. So the fact that we keep things like dark energy and dark matter doesnt that. Oh, now weve got it solved. Now weve got it out. No, its a fulfillment of the promise that there is always new and more wonderful things to be learned. Thank you. Yeah. You got to talk in the microphone or else. We dont know that you were here. Ever since i was in high school. Before that, actually. But i became aware of science particularly astronomers, astro physicians and physics physicists have been looking for that they call the grand unified right. What if there isnt one . What i mean does upset your faith in science or is it, in fact, to know that would be to know the mind of god . Well, the grand unified theory was first pushed by a guy named gutt, whose name is spelled got t just by his grand unified. So im always suspicious about that. I am not fascinated to find grand unified theory. Id love to see how things are unified, but if its a fruitful theory. It will expose things that. I didnt know. I didnt know an end to everything in physics would be the absolute worst kind of fate, because it would mean there was nothing else to know and that the universe was horribly. And i dont believe in that kind of universe. I dont believe in a universe where i cant go back my favorite painting or my Favorite Book and not read new things when i read it the second time. Or look at it the second time. So the people who, you know, are looking for a grand unified theory in some way. Theyre an older generation of physics. I dont find physicists talking about that so much anymore because it comes out of sort the tail end of 19th century science has got it all solved. What used to be called whig ism and the more science you learn, the more you realize it doesnt have it all solved. Science isnt a religion substitute any more than religion is a science substitute, though doing different things. And youve got to let each of them do the thing they do best because, both of them allow us human beings to then come closer to whatever that thing is that we truth. And if that sounds profound, its im stealing it from Pope John Paul the. Second, who talked about how the you know the rise to truth is is on the wings of faith and reason good source yeah. Hi. Good afternoon guy does the vatican Observatory Network with the observatory in halley school to see how the satellites are impacting the earth around us we are an integral part of the community of scientists. So not just that observatory, every observatory we have our own telescope. Yes. Because its nice to have a telescope to try out ideas that might not be able to get telescope time from somebody to try out. But we can apply for time with other telescopes. And im the Vice President of the meteor critical society. Im a past president of the for Planetary Sciences of, the american astronomical society. Chris kirribilli with the Vice President of the International Astronomical union. Weve sat on committees judging other peoples, you know, grant proposals. Would they like to have in those committees because were not competing for the same money, which is kind of nice and this goes to a deeper point is science is not done by lone geniuses, unlike what you see in the movies. Science is done by teams of people working slowly and and together, talking to each other, finding where is the conversation now . What are people interested in . Can i contribute that conversation . You dont find science on your own any more than you can find. Jesus on your own. I think the end of the day, the people who think they can, you know, be faith filled without. Being a member of the church. Remind me of those guys who sit in their basement and write emails full of capital letters about how theyve discovered that einstein all wrong and theyve got the new truth. And can i just, you know, get them help them their book published. Thats not how science works. Its not how works. We are a Community People and how do we communicate . By telling our stories to each other. So it goes to storytelling that we. And then one more question. When did you teach kenya. I was in the peace. From 1983 to 85. And so if, you know, peace corps people from that era, we were about to have a reunion. Our group, 40 years after we went off there. It was a life changing experience. If it was anybody, the room or on you know, watching this is, you know, at a point in your life when youre free to do something crazy and youre like, this is go join the peace corps or something equivalent. Toughest youll ever love and an absolute life changing experience to. Be pulled out of the familiar just as a Science Fiction pulls you out of the familiar universe then you look back and see with eyes all the things that you know the United States isnt that different from a third world country. And we ought to be a little more aware of that. Its economics, where most of what we sell overseas is Raw Materials to our the divisions were getting now with know they say california, the two biggest housing booms in gated communities and prisons. Do they get the kind of gated community. By living overseas also look to see and ah this what i love about america all the things that i took for granted which now see are special and unique and wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. My question is mostly about underappreciated science. Now and again, we get assigned to the story that breaks the news cycle and we talk about it for a couple of weeks. Chris byrne genetic modification string theory in the multiverse. What in your estimation are some insights fields of science that arent being talked about that would just make the most increase all Inspiring Stories like arent we talking about this these could now animate us. I used to be a journalist and so i understand the temptation to look the big story. And because whats going to sell the trouble is the big, exciting thing has a 50 chance of being wrong. Or worse yet, 50 of the new exciting thing is going to be and we dont know which 50 yet which it exciting but it also is a bad substitute for what science really is. If you think of science as a cathedral. Its built one brick at a time and watching cement dry and paint dry doesnt necessarily make for exciting stories. So i go back to the very instead of talking about facts, talk about people you about the people who have dedicated themselves to, you know, following butterfly and seeing how that has changed 50 years or finding who have been tracing asteroid in their orbits from days when nobody did that to the days when suddenly that was really popular. And now somehow people are forgotten about it again. You tell the stories about the and you find people who are relatable, you know, not the oddballs, not the dark in back to the future. I love to the future, but, you know, he was not a scientist and being able to find the story in these people is, i think, the sign of a good storyteller. One of the things that weve been doing the vatican observatory for 20 years is measuring the and the porosity of meteorite ice. Whats their volume, their weight. You think itd be really easy to do, but nobody had done it because it takes ten years to put together database. Thats worth a while. And nobody ten years worth of funding except i dont have to worry about funding. And i had a collection of meteorites, so i was able to start it off. And then a younger guy came and did it better than me the young guy who came along and did it better than me has now been brought on by nasa to measure the samples being brought by the osirisrex mission to an measuring that today everybody realizes are important. But 30 years ago, nobody even thought to do. And it was a long, tedious, but you know for us doing it a lot of fun, it meant being able to travel around the world with our little machines and and having adventures day in and day out, touching pieces, outer space. Thank you. Hes got something written down. So this is going to dangerous. This is a small question. What are some scientific discoveries have reinforced your faith. Oh, thats thats a fabulous question. But it actually works the other way around. What are the things that i learned about god, which gives me more faith in being a scientist . You heard about i was in the peace. You didnt hear. How come i went into the corps . I was 30 years old. I was a postdoc at mit, which meant i couldnt get a job and i was lying in bed at night wondering, am i worried about the moons of jupiter when people are starving in the world . And i didnt have an answer. So i went off to africa and found out that, you know, people in africa wanted to know about the moons, jupiter, too, because theyre kind of cool. And you go people worrying and interested in the universe, not because its going to fill my stomach, but just because it feeds my soul. Oh, maybe we dont live by bread alone that i read that someplace. When i became a jesuit it, i discovered more and more. Why having a faith in the god of genesis gives me the courage to do the science. I mean, think about three things that we learn about and genesis. Genesis is a book about god, not about creation. It was the, you know, the babylonian creation story, which absolutely 100 years after genesis was written. But what they have to say about, god is important. It says the universe was deliberately, by god, which is to say its real its not just an illusion. The universe, as logical as day follows, which is to that theres only one god who is not part the universe, but already there before the universe was made super natural. The supernatural doesnt mean ghosts and things. If there are ghosts, theres still part our nature super supernatural means outside of space, outside of time, and only such a god can give meaning to the universe can give value to the universe, and that god set things up. Following rules, which is to say there is no god of thunder and there was no god of lightning. You know, i explain lightning bolts because there was zoo throwing the lightning bolts. Then i better come up with another explanation. Maxwells equations. But if the universe is made deliberately by a god who, says this is good, and ive had a hebrew scholar tell me that another translation for the words is good is this works works . You know, if youre an engineer, what higher is there. Yeah, that works. Then that means that studying the universe a worthwhile use of your time. That thats why you study moons of jupiter. Even though there are people starving in the world, because building up soul also in the long run gives people the courage to attack the problems that allow them to attack, you know, hunger and other things in the long run. But that idea, the universe is good was not in every religion. The idea that the universe is not full of nature gods causing thing to happen. So its not that every religion, the idea that the universe real thats not in every religion but you have to believe those things if youre going to spend your life being scientist in only as i learned those things about god do i get more more reinforced that my science worth doing. So god gives me the courage and the faith to be a scientist. Probably have time for maybe one more question if you can come on up. Well, i guess its two people, so ill let you go. Two more. All right. Yeah. Im curious about how daily experiences with science, your prayer, life and, really like how do you pray . Well, yeah. Ask me the easy ones. Everybody prays differently and everybody prays differently at different times in their life. Probably the most common kind of prayer is going for walks in the papal gardens where i headquarters is located in the summer gardens in Castel Gandolfo. And what a great place to contemplate the universe. And when things feeling rotten, you go out and you look at the trees and you look at the sky and you look at the the distant ocean. You go, universes isnt such a bad place after all. And maybe theres something under it that gives you the courage to go on. You may be familiar with the astronauts prayer. This was the prayer that alan said and the very First American 15 minute jaunt into space when he was lying in the capsule. And apparently he said this out loud, not he was. The mike was hard. And he said, dear god, please dont let me screw up. Except he didnt use the word screw. To which the people in houston go, thats roger allen and thats a very common kind of prayer. And sometimes god just laughs me by making. Things happen way beyond anything i expected. Divine coincidence, just what he needed at just the moment needed just the person i needed to talk to in just a moment. I needed to talk to them. And thats gods way of. Saying how you thought i was god fooled you that i hope that gives you a sense of what prayer is like. Its a conversation with a friend really. At the end of the day that sort of comes down to. I think within the of stories and religion. Theres a of precedent for revisiting stories or revisiting religious philosophy or, texts and things like that. Do you find it fruitful, interesting to, i guess, engage in a similar with regards to science, either revisiting older things had been discovered long ago and early anymore or trying to see sort of like new light on, oh my gosh, things that youve worked on. Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. One of the most valuable things have in our observatory in Castel Gandolfo is a repository array of about 8000 and glass plates where people photograph sky for one reason or another, going back to 1890 and now when something shows up in a star is shown to be, you know, unusual variable, you can go back to the plates and say, do we have evidence of that can we actually see that there was i dont know if some of you may have following a thing called tabbys star, which was a star seen by the kepler spacecraft a very in a way different from if it planets but in a way that didnt an easy explanation and the first question was okay we know this star is interesting and weve seen it for the three years that the kepler spacecraft observing it, what did it look like . 50 years ago . 75 years ago . You go back to the old plates and you can see not only are there short term variations, but also a long term variation which rules out one set of theories and a different set of theories. Reading all scientific papers when you get to have gray hair like me, every scientist becomes a historian because a lot of the people that are in the history books are people we knew when we were and its not only eye opening, but just fun by accident. One of those divine coincidences happened to pull off the shelf the 1865 volume of the philosophic transactions of the royal society. Why would i do that . Long story. I opened it up just to see kind of things. Are people talking about in 1865 . And i found james clerk maxwells paper on the electromagnetic field. No. Those of you who are not scientists out of this, we got idea that electricity and magnetism can be expressed as fields that fluctuate and the fluctuation of the one supports the fluctuation of the other and turns things from just fields into ways in a field. And you say, what good is that . Well, a fellow named hertz said, huh, that cant be right. That means if i just jiggle some electricity back and forth, i could set up waves that could be picked up by an antenna. Oh, my gosh. And a fellow named marconi says. These are going out in every radius. Course he use the italian word radio out of maxwells equations. We the understanding of where light coming from why it moves way it does, how it can carry information in its spectrum of the atoms that it has encountered out this we have every bit of that is in the the electronic chips. It makes everything work out. Maxwells equations ultimately came quantum theory and relativity. All of these in a set of papers. This particular paper in 1965. And its fun to read how much he knew this is all going to mean. He knew that it was speed of light. He knew that he was understanding light was and how much he didnt know. One of the assumptions at the beginning is this is. Well, we all know that light is by something called the ether. What if the ether has a finite compressive bility . There is no ether. One of the things that we finally learn from these equations is there is no ether. He came to the realization by assuming something about a substance that turns out doesnt even exist. And one of the things you learn that makes science amazing and miraculous is that scientists keep getting it wrong and yet lined up on the truth over and, over and over again, which is both humbling and also edifying because it means you shouldnt be afraid of being wrong. Because in the process of being wrong, you learn new things that you didnt realize. You know, before. In the process of admitting you sins, you begin learn that god loves you. You know theres nothing you have done that it makes him stop loving you, which is kind of creepy, really, but amazing. Yeah. Theres an awful lot to be learned going back and revisiting. Im one of those people who rereads my Favorite Books and theyre never the same. You know, if its a good book, theyre never the same. I read lord of the rings four times, five times and start to finish, and it feels like a new book every time. Because im a new person reading it. Thats why we have libraries we have books that we can go back to and why im honored to be at a library celebrating the place where you can the things that me give sense and and structure to how i interact with the universe thanks a whole lot of everybody for coming here